Two or three days and nights
went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid
along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is
the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous
big river down there ­sometimes a mile and
a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes;
soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating
and tied up ­nearly always in the dead water
under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and
willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we
set out the lines. Next we slid into the river
and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;
then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water
was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come.
Not a sound anywheres ­perfectly still
­just like the whole world was asleep, only
sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe.
The first thing to see, looking away over the water,
was a kind of dull line ­that was the woods
on t’other side; you couldn’t make nothing
else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness
spreading around; then the river softened up away off,
and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could
see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away ­trading
scows, and such things; and long black streaks ­rafts;
sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled
up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far;
and by and by you could see a streak on the water
which you know by the look of the streak that there’s
a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it
and makes that streak look that way; and you see the
mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens
up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in
the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other
side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled
by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres;
then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning
you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to
smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but
sometimes not that way, because they’ve left
dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they
do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the
full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the
song-birds just going it!

A little smoke couldn’t be noticed
now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and
cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would
watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy
along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake
up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe
see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off
towards the other side you couldn’t tell nothing
about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel;
then for about an hour there wouldn’t be nothing
to hear nor nothing to see ­just solid lonesomeness.
Next you’d see a raft sliding by, away off
yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because
they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d
see the axe flash and come down ­you don’t
hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by
the time it’s above the man’s head then
you hear the K’CHUNK! ­it had took
all that time to come over the water. So we
would put in the day, lazying around, listening to
the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and
the rafts and things that went by was beating tin
pans so the steamboats wouldn’t run over them.
A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them
talking and cussing and laughing ­heard them
plain; but we couldn’t see no sign of them;
it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying
on that way in the air. Jim said he believed
it was spirits; but I says:

“No; spirits wouldn’t say, ‘Dern
the dern fog.’”

Soon as it was night out we shoved;
when we got her out to about the middle we let her
alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted
her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs
in the water, and talked about all kinds of things ­we
was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes
would let us ­the new clothes Buck’s
folks made for me was too good to be comfortable,
and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we’d have that whole
river all to ourselves for the longest time.
Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water;
and maybe a spark ­which was a candle in
a cabin window; and sometimes on the water you could
see a spark or two ­on a raft or a scow,
you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song
coming over from one of them crafts. It’s
lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there,
all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our
backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether
they was made or only just happened. Jim he
allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened;
I judged it would have took too long to make
so many. Jim said the moon could a laid
them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t
say nothing against it, because I’ve seen a
frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.
We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see
them streak down. Jim allowed they’d got
spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would
see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now
and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up
out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in
the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn
a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow
shut off and leave the river still again; and by and
by her waves would get to us, a long time after she
was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that
you wouldn’t hear nothing for you couldn’t
tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore
went to bed, and then for two or three hours the shores
was black ­no more sparks in the cabin windows.
These sparks was our clock ­the first one
that showed again meant morning was coming, so we
hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.

One morning about daybreak I found
a canoe and crossed over a chute to the main shore ­it
was only two hundred yards ­and paddled about
a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see
if I couldn’t get some berries. Just as
I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed
the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the
path as tight as they could foot it. I thought
I was a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody
I judged it was me ­or maybe Jim.
I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but
they was pretty close to me then, and sung out and
begged me to save their lives ­said they
hadn’t been doing nothing, and was being chased
for it ­said there was men and dogs a-coming.
They wanted to jump right in, but I says:

“Don’t you do it.
I don’t hear the dogs and horses yet; you’ve
got time to crowd through the brush and get up the
crick a little ways; then you take to the water and
wade down to me and get in ­that’ll
throw the dogs off the scent.”

They done it, and soon as they was
aboard I lit out for our towhead, and in about five
or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,
shouting. We heard them come along towards the
crick, but couldn’t see them; they seemed to
stop and fool around a while; then, as we got further
and further away all the time, we couldn’t hardly
hear them at all; by the time we had left a mile of
woods behind us and struck the river, everything was
quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid
in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy
or upwards, and had a bald head and very gray whiskers.
He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy
blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches
stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses ­no,
he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue
jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over his
arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty,
and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast
we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that
come out was that these chaps didn’t know one
another.

“What got you into trouble?”
says the baldhead to t’other chap.

“Well, I’d been selling
an article to take the tartar off the teeth ­and
it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along
with it ­but I stayed about one night longer
than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding
out when I ran across you on the trail this side of
town, and you told me they were coming, and begged
me to help you to get off. So I told you I was
expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with
you. That’s the whole yarn ­what’s
yourn?

“Well, I’d ben a-running’
a little temperance revival thar ’bout a week,
and was the pet of the women folks, big and little,
for I was makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies,
I tell you, and takin’ as much as five or
six dollars a night ­ten cents a head, children
and niggers free ­and business a-growin’
all the time, when somehow or another a little report
got around last night that I had a way of puttin’
in my time with a private jug on the sly. A
nigger rousted me out this mornin’, and told
me the people was getherin’ on the quiet with
their dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty
soon and give me ’bout half an hour’s start,
and then run me down if they could; and if they got
me they’d tar and feather me and ride me on
a rail, sure. I didn’t wait for no breakfast ­I
warn’t hungry.”

“Old man,” said the young
one, “I reckon we might double-team it together;
what do you think?”

“I ain’t undisposed. What’s
your line ­mainly?”

“Jour printer by trade; do a
little in patent medicines; theater-actor ­tragedy,
you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when
there’s a chance; teach singing-geography school
for a change; sling a lecture sometimes ­oh,
I do lots of things ­most anything that comes
handy, so it ain’t work. What’s
your lay?”

“I’ve done considerble
in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’
on o’ hands is my best holt ­for cancer
and paralysis, and sich things; and I k’n
tell a fortune pretty good when I’ve got somebody
along to find out the facts for me. Preachin’s
my line, too, and workin’ camp-meetin’s,
and missionaryin’ around.”

Nobody never said anything for a while;
then the young man hove a sigh and says:

“Alas!”

“What ‘re you alassin’ about?”
says the bald-head.

“To think I should have lived
to be leading such a life, and be degraded down into
such company.” And he begun to wipe the
corner of his eye with a rag.

“Dern your skin, ain’t
the company good enough for you?” says the baldhead,
pretty pert and uppish.

“Yes, it is good enough
for me; it’s as good as I deserve; for who fetched
me so low when I was so high? I did myself.
I don’t blame you, gentlemen ­far
from it; I don’t blame anybody. I deserve
it all. Let the cold world do its worst; one
thing I know ­there’s a grave somewhere
for me. The world may go on just as it’s
always done, and take everything from me ­loved
ones, property, everything; but it can’t take
that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and
forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at
rest.” He went on a-wiping.

“No, I know you haven’t.
I ain’t blaming you, gentlemen. I brought
myself down ­yes, I did it myself.
It’s right I should suffer ­perfectly
right ­I don’t make any moan.”

“Brought you down from whar?
Whar was you brought down from?”

“Ah, you would not believe me;
the world never believes ­let it pass ­’tis
no matter. The secret of my birth ­”

“The secret of your birth! Do you mean
to say ­”

“Gentlemen,” says the
young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it to
you, for I feel I may have confidence in you.
By rights I am a duke!”

Jim’s eyes bugged out when he
heard that; and I reckon mine did, too. Then
the baldhead says: “No! you can’t
mean it?”

“Yes. My great-grandfather,
eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled to this
country about the end of the last century, to breathe
the pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving
a son, his own father dying about the same time.
The second son of the late duke seized the titles
and estates ­the infant real duke was ignored.
I am the lineal descendant of that infant ­I
am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am I,
forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised
by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and
degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!”

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so
did I. We tried to comfort him, but he said it warn’t
much use, he couldn’t be much comforted; said
if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do
him more good than most anything else; so we said
we would, if he would tell us how. He said we
ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say “Your
Grace,” or “My Lord,” or “Your
Lordship” ­and he wouldn’t mind
it if we called him plain “Bridgewater,”
which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name;
and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and
do any little thing for him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done
it. All through dinner Jim stood around and
waited on him, and says, “Will yo’
Grace have some o’ dis or some o’
dat?” and so on, and a body could see it was
mighty pleasing to him.

But the old man got pretty silent
by and by ­didn’t have much to say,
and didn’t look pretty comfortable over all
that petting that was going on around that duke.
He seemed to have something on his mind. So,
along in the afternoon, he says:

“Looky here, Bilgewater,”
he says, “I’m nation sorry for you, but
you ain’t the only person that’s had troubles
like that.”

“No?”

“No you ain’t. You
ain’t the only person that’s ben snaked
down wrongfully out’n a high place.”

“Alas!”

“No, you ain’t the only
person that’s had a secret of his birth.”
And, by jings, he begins to cry.

“Hold! What do you mean?”

“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the
old man, still sort of sobbing.

“To the bitter death!”
He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,
and says, “That secret of your being: speak!”

“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then
the duke says:

“You are what?”

“Yes, my friend, it is too true ­your
eyes is lookin’ at this very moment on the pore
disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy
the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”

“You! At your age!
No! You mean you’re the late Charlemagne;
you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the
very least.”

“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater,
trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray
hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the
wanderin’, exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin’
rightful King of France.”

Well, he cried and took on so that
me and Jim didn’t know hardly what to do, we
was so sorry ­and so glad and proud we’d
got him with us, too. So we set in, like we
done before with the duke, and tried to comfort him.
But he said it warn’t no use, nothing but to
be dead and done with it all could do him any good;
though he said it often made him feel easier and better
for a while if people treated him according to his
rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him,
and always called him “Your Majesty,”
and waited on him first at meals, and didn’t
set down in his presence till he asked them.
So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this
and that and t’other for him, and standing up
till he told us we might set down. This done
him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable.
But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn’t
look a bit satisfied with the way things was going;
still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and
said the duke’s great-grandfather and all the
other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of
by his father, and was allowed to come to the
palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good
while, till by and by the king says:

“Like as not we got to be together
a blamed long time on this h-yer raft, Bilgewater,
and so what’s the use o’ your bein’
sour? It ’ll only make things oncomfortable.
It ain’t my fault I warn’t born a duke,
it ain’t your fault you warn’t born a
king ­so what’s the use to worry?
Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em,
says I ­that’s my motto. This
ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here ­plenty
grub and an easy life ­come, give us your
hand, duke, and le’s all be friends.”

The duke done it, and Jim and me was
pretty glad to see it. It took away all the
uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it,
because it would a been a miserable business to have
any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want,
above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be
satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn’t take me long to make
up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings
nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds.
But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to
myself; it’s the best way; then you don’t
have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble.
If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I
hadn’t no objections, ’long as it would
keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use
to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him. If
I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that
the best way to get along with his kind of people is
to let them have their own way.

Search for books you want to read free by choosing a title. In this long list, you can find works in different literary forms, not just in English but in many other languages of the world, composed by a diverse and interesting array of authors. Many of these books are all time classics appealing to all ages. Authored by many renowned authors of their times, these books are a unique resource of knowledge and enrichment to be cherished forever.